Franck: Violin Sonata & Chausson: Concert

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gut strings and an Erard piano from around 1885 help to create the welcome impression that we are in a Parisian salon, listening up close. The Erard has a rich, woody depth of tone; play no louder... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2017, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 19th May 2017
Catalogue No: HMM902254
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 67 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

19th May 2017
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2017
Record Review

2nd September 2017

Recording of the Week

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Franck, C: Violin Sonata in A major

Work length28:08

$4.40

$5.50

$6.40

Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov

I. Allegro ben moderato

Track length6:32

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

II. Allegro

Track length7:53

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

III. Recitativo fantasia. Ben moderato

Track length7:24

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

IV. Allegro poco mosso

Track length6:19

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Chausson: Concert in D major for piano, violin and string quartet, Op. 21

Work length38:57

$5.20

$6.50

$7.60

Alexander Melnikov, Isabelle Faust
Salagon Quartet

I. Décidé

Track length13:58

$1.60

$2.00

$2.35

II. Sicilienne

Track length4:26

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

III. Grave

Track length9:41

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

IV. Finale. Très animé

Track length10:52

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

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Recording of the Week, Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov perform César Franck's Violin Sonata

19th May 2017

James is enthralled by a new recording of music for violin and piano by César Franck and Ernest Chausson.

Regular chamber partners Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, playing on period instruments, shine new light on two major works of chamber music written at the dawn of the 20th century.

The 'Sonata' is Franck’s most frequently played and recorded work. Premiered by Eugène Ysaÿe, in Brussels on 16 December 1886, a judge as shrewd as Alfred Cortot was lucid enough to make an arrangement for solo piano. Since then it has been transcribed for nearly every instrument on the planet and is a permanent staple of the repertoire.

Although it is devoid of passages in double stopping or pizzicato, the violin part, replete with treacherous chromatic twists and turns, nonetheless poses formidable difficulties of intonation.

Franck's influence on Ernest Chausson's 'Concert' is unmistakable. A late-Romantic hybrid, the work blends elements of piano and string quintet styles and here regains a freshness which delicately illuminates, in the hands of Faust and Melnikov. Completed a year after the Symphony in B flat, and again written for Ysaÿe, the 'Concert' asserts its roots in the heritage of Rameau and Couperin, thus foreshadowing Debussy’s 'Hommage à Rameau' (1905) and Ravel’s 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' (1917).

Reviews

August 2017

gut strings and an Erard piano from around 1885 help to create the welcome impression that we are in a Parisian salon, listening up close. The Erard has a rich, woody depth of tone; play no louder than a whisper yet without losing eloquence is surely facilitated by the gentle plangency of her strings.

May 2017

[Chausson] Faust and the quartet…conjures and maintains a spellbinding, moonlit atmosphere. [Franck] equally impressive…[Faust] finds intense expressivity in restraint and emotional directness.

19th May 2017

Faust and Melnikov are utterly spellbinding. It might not be quite like any performance you’ve heard of the Franck sonata before, but that makes it all the more welcome; a genuine delight.

11th June 2017

The A major Violin Sonata (1886) is his most frequently recorded work, but few performers have reached into its incandescent erotic passion as this duo do here. The piano part is famously virtuosic, but Melnikov, an established soloist as well as Faust’s regular partner, makes light of its difficulties … They are joined by the young Salagon Quartet in the undeservedly less familiar Chausson concerto — another heady French chamber work under the influence of “Wagnerisme”. The rising intensity of the trés animé finale is almost indecent, as Mme Franck might have said

11th June 2017

few performers have reached into [the Franck's] incandescent erotic passion as this duo do here. The piano part is famously virtuosic, but Melnikov, an established soloist as well as Faust’s regular partner, makes light of its difficulties. Their vision of the piece and its turbulent emotions is grand in scale, almost operatic.

Record Review 28th May 2017

this disc is an absolute keeper; it’s sensational … it’s hard to imagine that Ysaÿe could have done better

Franck: Violin Sonata & Chausson: Concert

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Recording of the Week, Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov perform César Franck's Violin Sonata

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